It wouldn't be Easter without a Simnel fruit cake! We've baked ours in a loaf tin and topped it with a hazelnut marzipan, perfect for teatime.
Cooking notes: plus chilling and cooling
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Yields:
8 serving(s)
Prep Time:
40 mins
Cook Time:
1 hr 35 mins
Total Time:
2 hrs 15 mins
Cal/Serv:
687
Ingredients
For the hazelnut marzipan
175g
roasted chopped hazelnuts
175g
icing sugar, plus extra to dust
1
medium egg white
1/4tsp.
vanilla extract
Milk, to glaze
For the cake
150g
unsalted butter, softened, plus extra to grease
150g
light brown soft sugar
150g
self-raising flour
21/2tsp.
mixed spice
3
medium eggs, beaten
350g
mixed dried fruit
50g
chopped mixed peel
1Tbsp.
apricot jam
Directions
Step 1To make the marzipan, whizz hazelnuts and icing sugar in a food processor until finely chopped. Add egg white and vanilla and whizz until mixture starts to clump together. Tip on to a work surface and bring together with your hands. Shape into a disc, wrap in clingfilm and chill until needed.
Step 2Preheat oven to 170°C (150°C fan) mark 3. Grease a 900g loaf tin with butter and line base and sides with baking parchment.
Step 3For the cake, in a large bowl using a handheld electric whisk, beat butter, sugar, flour, mixed spice, eggs and ¼tsp fine salt, until combined. Stir in dried fruit and mixed peel. Scrape half the mixture into the prepared tin, smooth to level.
Step 4Remove marzipan from fridge and cut off ⅓. Tightly re-wrap and chill the remainder. Lightly dust marzipan with icing sugar and roll out to a neat rectangle the same size as the base of the tin (trim to neaten). Lay marzipan rectangle on top of the cake mixture in the tin, then top with remaining cake mixture; spread to level. Bake for 1½hr, until golden brown and firm to touch. Cool completely in the tin.
Step 5Roll out ⅔ of the remaining marzipan on baking parchment to a rectangle slightly larger than the top of the cake (trim to neaten). Remove cake from tin and brush top with a thin layer of jam, then invert cake on to the marzipan rectangle. Using the parchment to help you, flip the cake so it’s marzipan-side up. Peel off parchment. Gently press marzipan on to the cake to help it stick, then crimp the edge using the thumb and forefinger of one hand, and the index finger of the other.
Step 6Preheat grill to high and transfer cake to a sturdy baking sheet. Roll remaining marzipan into 11 equal balls. Brush marzipan on cake lightly with milk and stick the balls on top. Brush balls with milk. Grill until lightly browned – watch it carefully as it will caramelise very suddenly. Cool completely, then transfer to a board or serving plate. Serve in slices, using a serrated knife.
To store
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
GH Tip
For a lighter hazelnut flavour and paler marzipan, use blanched whole hazelnuts instead; they’ll just take longer to whizz initially.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
